VERSAILLES, France (Reuters) - Britain's Joe Choong, a fierce critic of Modern Pentathlon's decision to replace horses with obstacle courses after the Paris Olympics, said he planned to try the new format before deciding on retirement.
The 2021 gold medallist from Tokyo finished ninth in Saturday's men's event held against a backdrop of the Palace of Versailles and won by Egypt's Ahmed Elgendy, silver medallist three years ago.
"I think a nice couple of months holiday, work out what I want head-wise. I think I'll carry on for another year at least," the 29-year-old told reporters when asked what came next.
"It's very likely that I'll call it a day after that. I'd like to end on a slightly more positive note than ninth," he added.
"I'd have to (do obstacle courses) because this was the last ride in a (men's) Pentathlon ever."
"It's the most amazing atmosphere I've ever ridden in. The view was incredible, the crowd were even better...it almost felt like a home crowd, that was incredible," he said.
Choong praised his horse, Carioka d'Illiat, after completing the 10 jumps with one fault.
"She tried really hard for me, she was a really clever girl, she helped me out at a couple of jumps," he said. "It was a fun ride to end on."
The Briton explained he had no problems with obstacle courses, but disagreed completely with a decision process he described as opaque.
Choong was up against it from the fencing ranking round on Thursday when he suffered cramp and ended up "gutted" to have flopped in something that normally plays to his strengths.
He fought back in the semi-finals but needed the main contenders ahead of him to make mistakes. In the end, finishing in the top half of the field was an achievement.
"I left it all out there," he said. "I said yesterday I was sort of lying in wait for the slip-ups to happen but I needed those to happen and they didn't. I moved up a lot of places today. There was nothing else I could do.
"At the end of the day, I've still got that gold medal in my sock drawer at home."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, Editing by Hugh Lawson)
